Not His
by Faradork
Summary: Daniel realizes that you can't change something that hasn't even happened yet. Rated for some mild language.


I don't own _Lost_. Wish I did.

A/N: This piece doesn't explore exactly how Daniel went back in time (although we all have our theories), but rather just assumes it. It's meant to occur after he was at the construction of the Orchid station. It's just one of what will no doubt be many interpretations of the 'Daniel goes back in time to warn baby!Charlotte' event. Enjoy!

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The houses were all brightly-colored – the same color, in fact – with sunny porches and large open windows to let in the summer breeze. The air was moist in his nose, heavy with the fragrances of the numerous flora and fauna. There was grass, _real_ grass, and a playground and a flower garden in every front yard. It was the kind of place where no one had to lock their doors. It was everything a quant little suburban community on an island in the South Pacific should be: tranquil. Sedimentary. Conformed.

Charlotte would have hated it.

It wasn't that she shouldn't have it; no, not at all. It wasn't that she didn't deserve this along with anything and everything else she wanted. But she wouldn't have wanted this. He knew that without a doubt. His Charlotte was rugged cliffs and arid deserts; a tent pitched in a hurry to keep out the cold. She was sand and grit, with dirt beneath her fingernails and calluses on her palms. Soft skin sacrificed for her life's pursuit, for this place.

He very well could have had the wrong house. He even sort of hoped that he did. But he knew he didn't. The last name on the letterbox next to the door was staring at him, taunting him. "You know this is the right place," it said, "You know this is where she lives. So why don't you just knock on the door already and get it over with?" He focused instead on the number written below it: '316.' He wondered how many residences there had to be on the island for numbers to get that high. Where there other communities besides this one? Maybe there were other houses somewhere; maybe this was the wrong house. Maybe, there was another house, painted a different color, with a letterbox that also read 'Lewis,' and that house was real and this one wasn't. _No_, he thought. He knew this was real, he knew that somewhere in this house was his Charlotte, though not as he knew her.

HisCharlotte_._ He did not use the term to imply that she belonged to him exclusively (if anything, he felt tied to her more strongly than she ever would be to him), but rather to refer to the Charlotte that he knew, the Charlotte that he had fallen in love with. The Charlotte that had died in his arms. He used it because this, what he was about to do, this attempt at temporal deviation might very well result in a new timeline – a new 'street,' to use a previous metaphor – being created, something that was believed to be impossible. Because his previous attempt hadn't worked, if it could be called that; his mind caught on the words. On a linear timeline, this event had already happened. It was too late to change her past, but perhaps there was still time to change his future.

If this event had already happened, and was supposed to happen, then he wasn't _really_ deviating from the timeline, was he? He wasn't changing the rules, he was keeping them intact. This event had happened, and would happen. But that didn't mean he couldn't change it, even just the slightest. He wondered if this alteration would create a new reality and, along with it, a new Charlotte. It felt weird to think, but it was probably true. It was perhaps along the same vein of a butterfly flapping its wings in some primordial era, therefore influencing events in the present; if the butterfly hadn't flapped its wings at that precise moment and in that precise place, then the Eiffel Tower would never have been built, or Lincoln never would have been shot or something like that. _Bad example_, he thought. It was still the same principle, though.

Back in the past (or was it the future?), she had used words like 'crazy' and 'scary' to describe how her younger self saw him. Once they had stopped shifting through time, and he'd realized exactly when they were, he understood. The event had happened, but it had still not changed anything. Because she remembered it. _Maybe, if she doesn't remember it _herself_…maybe, if I don't tell _her_, but someone else, like her mother, then she won't want to come back here. _He could not see her, no matter how much he wanted to, but more importantly he could not be seen by her. Because it was the only thing he could think of that would change her future, but even more than that, because his heart ached at the thought of ever eliciting a fearful response in her.

His consciousness, that annoying voice which seemed to make itself heard only at the most inopportune moments, scorned him for his thoughts. _This is selfish. Finding this island was her life's ambition, the reason she became an anthropologist._ She was a passionate woman; she would find something else to live for. He would do his best to fill that void in her life.

_She won't be the same Charlotte after this._ But she would _be_, and that was enough.

_If she doesn't come back to the island, then the two of you will never meet._

The thought stopped him, but it wasn't for long, because the answer solidified itself almost immediately. If he still remembered her after this (he couldn't be sure whether or not the deviation would affect him as well), then he would go find her. He'd pretend to be a stranger and strike up a conversation with her. If she was with someone else – well, then he'd just be a friend and nothing more. It would be utterly selfish of him to still want to be a part of her life, but he could live with it. If he never found her, then at least he could be happy with the knowledge that she was out there alive and well somewhere.

_How do you even know what you'll say?_

_I'll know what to say, because I've already said it. _He made a tentative knock on the door.

As soon as he heard the footsteps inside, he felt the urge to run. "No, no, this is _supposed_ to happen," he told himself, clearing his mind and preparing for whatever happened when the door opened. When it did, he faltered, realizing that he hadn't really planned for this moment and didn't quite know what to expect. For example, he hadn't been expecting to be greeted with a smile, nor had he been expecting it to be so painfully obvious that Charlotte had inherited her mother's eyes. "You lost or something? You look like you should be down at the construction site," she voiced with the familiar accent. Her tone was inquisitive but not unpleasant.

"Mrs. – Mrs. Lewis?" he said, his voice coming back to him slowly.

"Yeah, that'd be me. What can I do for you?" she asked as though he were a travelling salesman. _By the end of this she's probably going to wish that I was._

"I, uh – can, can I have word with you? For a moment?"

"Yeah, sure. Will this take long?"

"Uh, it – it might."

"Well, why don't you just come in and have a sit, then?" she asked, opening the door wider for him. He paused, knowing it would probably be detrimental to his mission to enter the house. "Well, come on, love, you're letting all the cool air out," she added impatiently. He took a deep breath and stepped a cautious foot over the threshold. She closed the door behind him as he looked around.

He was in a cool and comfortable sitting room. It looked cozy, lived in. The Lewises had taken the time to make the place their own. Beyond he saw a kitchen and caught a whiff of what smelled like freshly cut potatoes. "Have a seat anywhere, I'll just be a bit," she said, heading back to the kitchen, "Can I get you something to drink? Water? Lemonade?"

"Oh, uh – no, thank you," he responded politely. He felt like an unwelcome stranger in this house, a foreboder of doom and bringer of death. _No, I'm here because I _don't_ want that, because I want to change things._ He sat down on the couch, reveling in the feel of it. Had his Charlotte sat in this same spot? He imagined her staying up late just the previous evening, enthralled by an engaging book. She fell asleep with it in her hands; her mother found her and carried her slumbering form back to bed before the morning came. God, there was so much he wanted to know. He wanted to memorize every picture and view every forgotten dusty corner of this room and of this house, which he imagined Mrs. Lewis would frown upon.

"So what's this all about?" She joined him, sitting in a chair opposite him. He took another deep breath. He'd pondered what to say at this moment, and nothing had seemed especially eloquent and well-thought-out. He gave in to necessity, and simply said what came to mind.

"You need to leave this place," he said slowly, enunciating each word clearly in the hopes that perhaps he would not have to repeat himself; or worse, explain what the hell he was talking about. Mrs. Lewis' brow furrowed at this, her pleasant smile fading somewhat.

"Excuse me?"

"You need to take your – family, and leave this place as soon as you can."

"Really?" she said. He had hoped beyond hope that it would be easy. He knew it wouldn't be, though. "So that's it, then? You're going to send us away, just like that? After all the years of loyal hard work from my husband and me, you're just going throw us out in the cold?" She sighed and looked down at her lap; when she looked back up at him her eyes were starting to water over with frustration. Anger, sadness, hate – it was all plainly written on her face. "In case you didn't know we've got a daughter to care for, so it's not just us you're hurting." She thought he didn't know? How could he not?

"Please, I know, and I'm sorry. It's just – you need to leave." He decided to go along with her assumption that he was with the Initiative. "So take your daughter with you, and just go. And don't come back. Ever."

"What, are you not even going to give us a day or two to pack up?" she stood as she spoke, her voice gaining both in tenacity and decibels, "You just want us to vacate the premises now, so the next sap can move right on in, is it?"

"No," he said, "No, that's not it. Please, take all the time you need, but do it soon. It's not – it's not that you've not done a good job. The Initiative, we've fallen on hard times, things aren't working out like we thought –" He was digging his hole around him, sounding less and less plausible by the minute. _Keep it together, Dan, don't freak her out more than you already have._

"How would you bloody well know? You're dressed like a workman –" She paused to look at his nametag. "Joe! Is this some kind of a prank? Going to evict us and take the house for yourself, are you?"

"This!" he said, grabbing at his shirt, "This isn't even mine! My name's not Joe!"

"Then what the hell is it?"

"I can't tell you! Please, I need you to listen to me! You need to leave or your daughter will die!"

There was a sharp intake of breath behind him; it was a small sound but clear, too clear to his ears, because they'd been waiting for it. They would have heard it from across the ocean even. It was halfway between a whimper and a cry, expressing a hundred different emotions that he was all too familiar with by this point. He kicked himself mentally for even thinking that he could change what had already happened; or rather, what was meant to happen, whatever this meeting was. And even though every fiber of his body was resisting it, screaming at him not to see or be seen, he could not deny the pull exuded by this little girl, this beautiful little girl, who meant everything and more to him.

She couldn't have been older than three. Her red hair was tied in two long pigtails, some flyaway strands framing her pale face. Her eyes were staring at him, through him, searching for something in him. He didn't know what she was looking for (a reason for why he was demanding that her family leave?), but he would have answered if he could. He'd have blinked Morse code to her if only she'd have understood it. His heart broke over and over again with every freckle that he counted upon her face.

Mrs. Lewis moved forward, placing a hand upon her daughter's shoulder. "Sweetie, go back to your room, okay? Mummy's talking right now." There was an edge to her voice. _Yes_, she was saying to her daughter. _Yes, this is the crazy man who wants us to leave. Yes, he is the one doing this to us._

"You're all going to be killed." It didn't matter anymore what he said, he'd already shot himself in the foot so why not just go for broke? "The Dharma Initiative, all of you, the island's native people are going to attack you. I don't know when it happens, but it will, and you have to get her off this island before then!"

Mrs. Lewis gave him a cold glare. "I think you should leave now," she said with ice in her voice. She turned away from him to walk her daughter out of the room and into the hall. He refused to let it end that way, and followed them.

"Charlotte, you'll die if you come back!" They were only a couple feet away from him. Both looked around, shock and fear marring their faces.

"How – how do you know my daughter's name?" Mrs. Lewis asked incredulously.

He bent down to meet her at eye level. "You have to leave this place, okay? You've got to go away and never come back! Are you listening to me?" he pleaded as her eyes wandered to her mother's face; they came back to his, wide and afraid, "You need to promise me that you'll never come back, okay?" He nodded to accentuate his words, indicating for her to do the same. She didn't. "If you come back, you'll die! Promise me that you won't come back, okay? Promise me, Charlotte!" She started backing away from him, her bottom lip quivering. "Charlotte, please, you have to promise me!" With a fearful whine and a whirl of red hair, she turned from him and ran down the hall, ducking into a room at the end.

"Right, that's it," Mrs. Lewis said sternly, grabbing him by the arm and hoisting him from the ground, "Get out of my house. Now." She pulled him through the living room and towards the door.

"Please, just get her off this island! Never let her come back!" he cried as he was forcibly shoved out the door, "I'll come find her! I'll take care of her, I promise, just don't let her come back!"

"She's not yours to take care of!" Mrs. Lewis shouted as she slammed the door in his face.

But he so desperately wanted her to be.


End file.
